Appreciation: La Rondine

Mrs. Buce dismissed it in a sentence. "Lehar," she said, "did it better." Well, she never was a big Puccini fan. And Lehar certainly does own the franchise for schmaltzy, fluffy, romantic musical comedy. By dipping his own toe in the schlag Puccini--with Rondine, on HD today from the Met--paid Lehar the unintended compliment of showing everybody else just how hard it is.

So Lehar did do it better, but Puccini did some things Lehar can't do and he does it with so much (surprise!) good-natured brio that you can' help but enjoy it. I'm actually not that big of a Puccini fan myself, though I am not as firm in my views as Mrs. B: I do think he's at his best when he is (seems to be?) trying least hard: the one really fine piece of work is the one-act comedy Gianni Schicchi, while the more familiar war-horses just strike me as mostly over the top. I'd put La Rondine in the same bucket as Gianni Schicchi and I mean that a compliment.

It's a little unclear why the Met would dare to spruce up this supposed runt of the Puccini litter for the first time since the year in which I was born, but I suppose it has something to do with the star power of Angela Gheorghiu and her husband, Roberto Alagna, who over the past few years have made it their baby. And sure enough, the role of the somewhat featherbrained protagonist is a perfect for Gheorghiu's impressive if not always well-disciplined talents. Her husband has a voice that is affable if not particularly distinctive but on the whole he is probably a better actor, and helps a lot to move along what is, after all, a pretty flaccid plot.

Indeed speaking of plot, the real energy came not from either of the stars but from the "comic subplot"-- Marius Brenciu and Lisette Oropesa as a couple of not-very-competent schemers who provide most of the energy, at least for the first act. Mr. Brenciu was pleasant if somewhat bland: this may be the curse of the comic tenor, or any tenor. Ms. Oropesa was livelier: she got a break as Susanna at the Met last year and she is booked to stay busy as Rhine Maiden #1 for the rest of the season in in the Ring; trust me, you will hear more of her.

There is, in short, nothing very demanding here although some of the music is lovely and you can, if you wish, entertian yourself by thinking of all the stuff that it mimics or echoes: a cleaned-up and more realistic Traviata, spiced up with a liberal side of On the Razzle and perhaps Fleidermaus Fledermaus, all under the benign and appreciative gaze of Steven Sondheim.

I yield to the temptation to add a few words about the issue of HD: believe it, we have just begun to see the beginning of the possibilities of this new art form. The cameras are thinking of more and more things to do, and the singers (and musicians) are thinking of more and more ways to respond to the cameras. Necessarily this means less and less attention to the audience in the house. Mrs. B was at the Met a few months back (I wasn't there) to observe the dismay of a regular subscriber when she found that her view was blocked by the video equipment. Apparently the subscriber raised holy hell and got reseated but if I were her, I'd be considering whether they really care enough about her any more.

Update: Looks like it beat me by about a month.